Ruff or bumpy pavement turns me into a biatch!
 

Ok, we have some roads we ride pretty regularly, one of which is pretty darn rough, my buddy Travis will take these corners just as he would on a smooth as a baby's bottom surface. For the life of me, I have yet to have that type of confidence in a corner on that road or similar surfaces. Two questions:

1) How do I increase my confidence level on ruff/bumpy pavement?

2)Does it affect you the same way? If not how did you get over that hump?:?:

:D

I can understand your pain on that. Ever since I low sided in some gravel, I choke up hard on the handle bars any time I see pebble like debris. I practically lose all focus and worry about the small pebbles on the ground. I tried ridding a couple more times on those roads and ended up getting rear ended by a lady on her cell phone. Now I am just paranoid!

Just take every ounce of weight off the bars, and onto your pegs. Let the suspension do its work instead of fighting it.

I do fight the natural tendency to tense up and will mentally tell myself to stay loose, I think it's a mental roadblock I need to burst though I just unconsciously slow down, not a chop the throttle type of slowing though.

As you would say, but coming from me...

"move north grasshopper"

very rarely does a nice road stay nice around here... salt eats them up and if not the salt, then amish buggy tires.

There is so much gravel around here that it does not bother me really unless it's a broken patch of road that's now gravel-like...

As said previously, good suspension that is properly setup will do wonders for confidence.

You cannot ride faster on a bumpy road vs. a smooth one. You can, however, be slow on both. lol

:iagree: It's like riding dirtbike in the sand. Relax and let the bike do the work. ( as particle man stated, your suspension has to be working WITH you )

One of the best things to do is practice with limited traction situations.


Ride your bike IN GRAVEL. Your tires will slip, but you will get used to the feeling and how to control it.


I ride with a buddy who HATES limited traction situations, rain, gravel, sand, bumpy road surfaces.

I don't mind them because I used to ride dirt bikes. I kind of like the feeling sometimes of breaking the rear loose.

There are plenty of gravel roads in NC. Find one that has a minimal amount of large rocks in it (likely to puncture a tire) and work on it.